


Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

by loopyhoopyfrood



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9215210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loopyhoopyfrood/pseuds/loopyhoopyfrood
Summary: Phryne Fisher remembered her old lives like one remembers a dream, until him.





	

Phryne Fisher remembered her old lives like one remembers a dream; disconnected snippets that could never be fully relied upon to be truth. Nothing solid, nothing concrete, just knowledge she shouldn’t know and memories of things never experienced, and she brushes them all off as she endeavours to live purely in the moment. She shuns those who attempt to tempt her with explanations and discovery, and when the déjà vu hits she learns to breathe through it until the instances barely even register. Her focus is on her current life, on taking her pleasure wherever she feels and on the makeshift family she gathers around her, on delighting in her freedom, on eschewing societal norms, and on a certain detective inspector who slowly, patiently, makes his way through her walls until he enters her heart. And when that life ends, although she considers it well spent, the knowledge of another to come is somehow less comforting than it should have been.

The next time she lives the memories are no longer made of dreams nor distance, and she finds it unnerves her. There have always been rumourings and theorising, a certain word bandied about with reverence or scorn, and she has the distinct feeling she has always been firmly in the camp of the sceptics rather than that of the dreamers. She thinks she can vaguely remember conversations concerning the idea, mostly conducted with a delicate girl adorned with soft curls, but it is not those memories that have become solid in her mind but ones of him. Whenever she closes her eyes she sees him, and things that should be insignificant are fragments of him; a carefully buttoned suit, a collection of plays, a scarf striped red and green, and when her hands tremble she almost succeeds in convincing herself it is just from the cold.

She tries to think nothing of it, to banish the ghost of his lips that in her previous life had passed over hers so many times yet never enough, but her attempt is futile. She tries to focus on this life, on freedom and the many pleasures available to her, but every instance is tainted with memories of the man who leant against her mantelpiece and she does not know if the accompanying emotion is longing or fear.

And then she sees him again. His face is different and his form has changed, and he only lasts a few seconds before he has vanished into the crowd. She chases, but he is gone, and she cannot explain how she is left with nothing but the certainty that it was him, and suddenly the word soulmate that has been echoing through her mind, both mockingly and intriguingly, threatening and tantalisingly, does not seem a terror but a comfort. She does everything she can to find him again, but this life has other plans, and she is stolen from it before the man can find the woman who waltzed through his memories the way his past self had barely dared hope she could.

The memories of her policeman are still solid in her next life, accompanied by those of a face in a crowd that she never got the chance to touch. This incarnation is less sceptical, still revelling in freedom and ambition yet unable to curb the baited breath every time she lays eyes on a new face. She opens herself up to conversations, finds herself seeking out stories from those who hold the conviction she is slowly admitting appeals more than continued disbelief. The word still scares her, still accompanied by notions of chains and cages, but the amused smile of the first incarnation of him that she met reminds her that it may not have to be that way after all. The urge to flee still remains, but it is softened by memories of the man who joined her in flight.

And when he smiles at her across the counter as their hands brush over a paper cup of coffee she almost forgets how to breath. And when he shrugs off his apron and joins her at her table she knows that he remembers too, and when they talk the unspoken word dances between them, not as a warning nor as a threat, but as a comfort.

They take it slowly, still uncertain, still new, but eventually she kisses him. And he has a few less years and a lot less scars, but he tastes of Jack Robinson.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write some Phryne/Jack fic ever since I discovered the show, and upon reading something about soulmates and reincarnation the last line of this came into my head, and thus the drabble was born. I didn't really think through any details of how the whole dream-soulmate thing in it actually works, but it was fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed it. I have some fully fledged Phrack fics planned out, so you might hear from me again (if my dissertation doesn't steal me away from life too badly).
> 
> Title is (of course) borrowed from Shakespeare, and can be found in Act 4, Scene 1 of The Tempest, a personal favourite of mine.


End file.
